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Monday, 29 September 2014

George Osborne: Choose the future

In his conference speech today, George Osborne set out the choice at the next election between David Cameron and the Conservatives who have answers to the big questions about Britain's future, or Ed Miliband and the Labour Party who would repeat the mistakes of the past.

George Osborne said: "I believe it is perfectly possible for Britain to be the most prosperous major country on earth. The most prosperous, the most dynamic, the most creative. But only if we, in our generation, provide the big answers to the big questions. Only if we choose the future not the past."

He also set out the next steps in the Conservatives' plan to eliminate the deficit and run a surplus in the next parliament:

The Conservatives will freeze working age benefits from April 2016 for two years. This will save £3.2 billion a year by 2017/18. Disability, carer and pensioner benefits are excluded, as are several smaller benefits such as statutory maternity pay.

George Osborne said: "Working age benefits in Britain will have to be frozen for two years. This is the choice Britain needs to take to protect our economic stability and to secure a better future. The fairest way to reduce welfare bills is to make sure that benefits are not rising faster than the wages of the taxpayers who are paying for them. For we will provide a welfare system that is fair to those who need it, and fair to those who pay for it too."

In the Autumn Statement the Treasury will end abuse by multinationals who divert profits offshore in order to avoid corporation tax. This will raise hundreds of millions of pounds as part of an anti-avoidance package raising billions of pounds over the next Parliament. This change will mainly affect multinationals using artificial arrangements to route profits to tax havens that would otherwise have been taxed in the UK. New anti-avoidance measures will dramatically reduce the benefits from complex arrangements such as the so-called "double Irish" used by some large multinationals, particularly in the technology sector. This measure comes after the progress made at the G20 and the OECD by the international "Base Erosion and Profit Shifting" (BEPS) project in which the UK has played a leading role.

George Osborne said: "While we offer some of the lowest business taxes in the world, we expect those taxes to be paid - not avoided. Some technology companies go to extraordinary lengths to pay little or no tax here. If you abuse our tax system, you abuse the trust of the British people. And my message to those companies is clear: we will put a stop to it. Low taxes, but low taxes that are paid. Part of our effort to reduce our deficit. For our choice is that we are all in this together."

The Chancellor also confirmed that:

This Government will abolish the punitive 55 per cent tax on death that is charged when people pass on a pension pot. The measure will apply to all payments made from April 2015, and means that people who have worked hard and saved all their lives will be able to pass on their hard-earned pension pot tax-free.

The Conservatives will abolish long term youth unemployment. We will deliver three million apprenticeships over the next Parliament. On top of that, if a young person has been unemployed for six months they will have to take an apprenticeship, training, or work for their benefits. Our plans will give hundreds of thousands of young people the opportunity of a better, more secure future. And we will pay for it by cutting the benefit cap and stopping most young people from claiming Housing Benefit.

Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, commenting on George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party Annual Conference, said: "Having failed to balance the books in this Parliament George Osborne has made his choice. He is choosing to give the richest one per cent a £3 billion-a-year tax cut and opposing a mansion tax while cutting tax credits which make work pay for millions of striving families. While working people have seen their wages fall by £1600 a year since 2010, the Tories have once again shown they are the party of a privileged few at the top."

Talking about Labour's plans, Mr Leslie commented: "Labour will balance the books as soon as possible in the next Parliament, but we will do so in a fairer way. We will reverse the Tory tax cut for millionaires, stop paying the winter fuel allowance to the richest five per cent of pensioners and cap child benefit rises at one per cent for two years."